


bloom

by lilaliacs



Category: Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, M/M, Mentions of Sex, at least as close as i get lmao, nothing explicit though, theres also a dog, woojin is a bartender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-07 02:05:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15898713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilaliacs/pseuds/lilaliacs
Summary: Worry, he had learned, came with attachment.





	bloom

**Author's Note:**

> i posted this back in march as a multichaptered fic but lost motivation for it fairly quickly. i made it into a oneshot now and decided to repost it so if it feels familiar to you that's probably why. 
> 
> i'm not 100% comfortable with writing stuff that's not pastel coloured and bubblegum flavoured, so i can't really judge this but it was definitely fun to try out and resist the urge to write a happy ever after 
> 
> inspired by bloom by the paper kites ♡ 
> 
> enjoy ♡

Woojin loved his dog, he really, really did. Ever since the day Daniel had annoyed him into coming to the pet-shop near their neighbourhood and he had first seen the tiny German Shepherd puppy in the pen there, he had loved her. 

Daniel had found him still in front of the pen after he came back from buying food for his cats and he had been the one to convince Woojin to take her home. “As long as the cats are okay with her. Otherwise she has to leave immediately.” Woojin was still not 100% sure that he had been joking. 

The cats had been okay with her, and she had seemed to be okay with all of them too and at one point Daniel had observed that they were like a small mix-matched family and they should make christmas cards. Woojin hadn’t let it happen. The day someone put an ugly sweater on his dog was the day he and whoever responsible for it died, whether they were family or not. Woojin wasn’t above fratricide over this. 

He loved Leia, but what he didn’t love was her habit of waking him up in the morning by jumping on his bed and licking his face. 

“Stop.” He pleaded, his hands trying to push her away to no avail. “Stop it.” 

At some point, Leia left his face alone, but kept her paws planted firmly on his chest. 

“What do you want?” Woojin asked her. 

“She’s not gonna tell you.” Daniel called from the adjacent living room. “A lady has to keep her secrets.” 

“Also she’s a dog.” Woojin gave back. 

The loud gasp from the next room brought a smile to his face. 

“He doesn’t mean it like that, princess.” Daniel called while Woojin could hear him shuffling closer. “He just doesn’t value a good intellectual conversation with you, like he should.” Daniel came into the room and settled on the edge of the mattress. 

“Well, I’m sorry, your majesty.” Woojin suppressed a chuckle. 

“Don’t mock me, I’m just calling her by her respective title.” Daniel laughed. “The hierarchy in this household is not to be questioned.” 

Leia carefully shuffled closer to Daniel and flopped down so that she was taking up most of the mattress that Woojin didn’t still lay on, her head in Daniel’s lap. 

“Hierarchy.” Woojin repeated with a small snort, as he sat up.

Daniel nodded importantly, a wide smile still on his face. “Rooney and Peter, the gentle and just queens, Leia the loving and widely popular princess, us, mere peasants.” He patted Leia’s head affectionately. “Hierarchy.”

“That’s stupid.” Woojin’s words wouldn’t even have had more of a bite to them if he hadn’t been yawning. 

“You’re stupid.” Daniel gave back nevertheless. 

“And you’re literally twelve years old.” 

“Well, this twelve year old has more of a social life than you.” Daniel stuck out his tongue, before seemingly remembering something. “Oh yeah, by the way, I’ll be at Sungwoon’s tonight.” 

“Okay, sure.” 

Daniel nodded, more to himself than to Woojin. “You’ll have the apartment to yourself.” He added, something knowing in his eyes. 

Woojin narrowed his eyes at him, a warning as well as acknowledgement. “Okay, sure.” He repeated. 

***

There were certain kinds of jobs that predestined you to meet all kinds of people. Taxi drivers, flight attendants, barkeepers. The whole day people came and went, talked or stayed silent, gave you their stories or took yours. Not all of these encounters were pleasant, but all of them were interesting. 

Woojin had never been one for encounters in general, growing up. And even now, as he found himself having encounter after encounter, he preferred all of them to be separated from him by the safety of a bar, all asking him for a drink if he was lucky, for a personal story if he was unlucky, to talk to his boss if he was having a _very_ unfortunate day. 

He could’ve blamed Daniel for this, but that would mean that he had anything to blame Daniel for and he didn’t. He loved his job, as much as he complained about it sometimes, and he was as thankful that Daniel had given it to him as he was thankful for everything Daniel had done for him. 

He had scraped Woojin from the streets, had given him somewhere to come home to, a job, and his trust and had asked for absolutely nothing in return. 

***

_“I’m sorry.” Woojin hurried to say to the guy he just ran into. “I didn’t watch where I was going.”_

_“Don’t worry about it.” He answered and grinned at him, but it froze on his face. “Oh, that looks bad.”_

_Without really wanting to, Woojin raised a hand to his cheek, where he knew the bruising had still not subsided. The small cut felt rough against his fingers. “It’s fine.” He muttered._

_It didn’t hurt as much anymore as the memory did. (His mother’s shrill voice. His father’s quieter, but infinitely angrier one.)_

_He expected the stranger to leave him alone after that, but the guy seemed to have no intentions to do so. “How did that happen?” He asked._

_When Woojin just looked at him for a few seconds, he added: “Sorry, that was intrusive probably. I’m just-- are you alright?”_

_Woojin wasn’t, but why did this random guy care?_

_“It’s just… I come here a lot because I work just a block away and, uh, I’ve seen you around a lot in the last few weeks?” It sounded more like a question than an observation. Woojin just looked at him with an eyebrow raised._

_He had spent most days around this part of the city. It was busy enough that no one questioned the presence of a random boy. The small park was like a little oasis in the midst of the chaos that was the city and Woojin’s life._

_“I’m fine.” He said, if only to get the guy off his back._

_“Okay.” He gave back. It didn’t sound very convinced, but Woojin didn’t think that he owed this stranger a convincing answer. “Okay, that’s good.”_

_Woojin looked at him for another few seconds._

_“My name’s Daniel.” The guy said._

_“Okay.”_

_Daniel nodded and pointed in the direction he had been walking in before Woojin had accidentally ran into him. “I’ll better get going.”_

_Woojin nodded._

_He thought that would be the last of it. But throughout the following week, he somehow stumbled upon Daniel more than the proximity to the guy’s workplace warranted._

_“Your cut looks better.” Daniel noted on their third meeting, exactly a week after their first._

_Before Woojin could say anything (‘Yes cuts tend to heal with time it’s a basic body function.’), he continued: “Actually, my friend is a nurse and he gave me this antiseptic cream…”_

_He trailed off, as Woojin watched him in slight disbelief as he rummaged through his bag. “There it is.” He held it out to Woojin with a grin._

_Woojin turned around and left him standing there, with his fancy pity-cream in hand._

_A few days later, Daniel was back. He sat down next to Woojin at a bus stop a short distance away from the park._

_“Are you hungry?” He asked after a moment. “I could use some food.” He added then, after he got only silence in reply._

_Daniel stood up again and gestured down the street. “You coming?”_

_“What?” Woojin deadpanned. He honestly didn’t understand many things about Daniel, like how he kept meeting him and kept attempting to make conversation with him despite Woojin making it very obvious he wasn’t up for it, but this was new._

_“Are you coming with me to get food?” Daniel repeated. “There’s this really good place a few houses down from my work, I go there all the time, I’m sure you’ll like it.”_

_“Why do you want me to come with you?” Woojin asked. “You don’t even know me. I could, I don’t know… rob you.”_

_“You don’t seem like you would.” Daniel shrugged. Woojin wanted to tell him that that was not a very good attitude to interactions with strangers, but he didn’t want to get distracted._

_“You still didn’t say why you want me to come with you.” He noted._

_“Maybe I want to rob you.” Daniel grinned._

_“You don’t seem like you would.” Woojin mocked his words from a minute ago._

_He expected Daniel to laugh it off, like he usually did, to give him a benign comeback, but Daniel did nothing of the sorts. Instead, he looked at Woojin for a second and asked: “When was the last time you had a proper meal?”_

_Woojin went to the restaurant with him._

_The next week, it was raining. A digital clock in the display of a store across the street told Woojin that it was 7pm as he stood in the shelter of another bus stop in the busy neighbourhood, hugging his damp hoodie around himself. Rainy days in April weren’t as friendly as the warmer spring days suggested._

_The rain on the roof of the bus stop was loud, a swelling, unstopping beat. Woojin liked to listen to the rain, but he thought he’d probably like the sound more if it didn’t make him worry about where to sleep tonight._

_A voice cut through the beat._

_“Woojin!”_

_Daniel had gotten him to tell him his name last week during lunch, but Woojin was still surprised to hear him call it. He came to this part of the city for the anonymity, so no one would question his presence, but over the last few weeks Daniel had somehow managed to keep picking him out from the masses, had cared enough to stop in the midst of it all._

_This time, Daniel didn’t try for smalltalk first. Woojin thought that it was probably how you got stray cats to trust you, slowly, through unsuspecting gestures of kindness. But Daniel didn’t ask him if he was hungry this time, didn’t give him something useful as if on an afterthought. He held the umbrella in his hand closer to Woojin and asked: “Do you need a place to stay?”_

***

Woojin would probably be thankful for the rest of his life on earth, and even after that if he had any say over it. 

On this particular afternoon though, Woojin hadn’t found it in him to feel thankful. Before he left for Sungwoon’s, Daniel had quite literally thrown him out of bed and roughly awoken him from the best nap he’d had in ages all because ‘your shift starts in 20 minutes, loser!’ 

So now Woojin was stuck polishing glass after glass, smiling at customer after customer and he’d done it for roughly two hours but he hadn’t quite managed to shake the tiredness. It was just going to be one of those days, he thought. He thought about how he could convince Daniel later to take Leia out for a walk in the morning so he could sleep in. Even just the thought of it made him suppress a yawn. 

“Didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, huh?” A voice from the other side of the bar said. 

“Nah, it’s just the depression.” Woojin answered before turning around. Jaehwan laughed, while Minhyun next to him shook his head in disapproval. 

“Sleep more, idiot.” He scolded. 

“But give me a drink first.” Jaehwan added. “Is Daniel not in?” 

Woojin shook his head while preparing Jaehwan’s usual order. “He’s out doing important boss-things, I presume.” Sungwoon and Daniel weren’t official yet, and Woojin wasn’t one for gossip.

“Bullshit, he’s probably stuck in the scented candles aisle again.” 

“Or that, yeah.” Woojin put the glass down on a coaster in front of Jaehwan and a small bowl of the crazily hot chips he liked in front of Minhyun. He would’ve left them to their own devices until Daniel came back, they were his friends in the first place still, but Minhyun put a hand on his arm and motioned him closer. 

“Not to creep you out.” He started quietly. “But that guy back there has been staring at you since we came in.” 

“He said not to creep you out but it’s really hella creepy.” Jaehwan chimed in a bit louder, much to Minhyun’s chagrin. “He’s kinda pretty though, so if you’re into that…” 

Woojin turned in the direction Minhyun had been vaguely pointing in and found the guy they had been talking about still staring at him. It didn’t creep him out. 

“Don’t worry about it.” He told the two of them, before setting down the towel he’d been holding and going over to the other side of the bar. 

“Can I do anything for you?” He asked, just the right mixture of nonchalance and professional friendliness. 

The guy cradled his head in his head when he answered: “You can tell me when you’re done with your shift.” 

“Same time as always. You know when my shift is over, Jihoon.” Woojin dropped the act, as Jihoon smiled. 

“I didn’t wanna seem rude.” 

Woojin rolled his eyes. “My friends back there think you’re a creep because you’re staring at me.” 

“You have friends?” Jihoon asked. He didn’t mean it as an insult, he seemed genuinely surprised. 

“They’re Daniel’s friends.” Woojin explained and Jihoon nodded. 

“Do you want me to stop staring at you?” He asked then. 

“I mean, do what you must but I don’t see why you would. It’s not like you’ve never looked at me.” 

“Cool, but let your friends know I’m not a creep.”

“What am I supposed to tell them? ‘That’s Jihoon, he comes here all the time, we fuck sometimes’?” 

Jihoon shrugged. “I mean, do what you must.” 

Woojin rolled his eyes again, but with a smile this time and went over to a group of women that had just stepped closer to the bar. 

Jaehwan called him over a few minutes later. “He hasn’t stopped staring at you.” He observed. 

“I know.” 

“Do you know him?” Minhyun asked. 

“Kind of.” 

They were used to Woojin being vague like this. He hadn’t been in their life for long enough for them to question it, he guessed. Maybe in another year they’d pry more, but they had barely known each other for 5 months. He hadn’t even planned to get any closer to them at first, to call them friends instead of just acquaintances. They were Daniel’s friends and he didn’t want to assume his place in Daniel’s life just because Daniel maybe had or hadn’t saved his own. 

But Daniel hadn’t really left him another choice. He’d constantly invited him out with them or “accidentally” left him alone with them while he was running errands and now they were just constantly around. Woojin had mostly accepted it, but that didn’t mean he wanted them to know everything about his life. 

“So it’s cool that he’s staring at you?” Jaehwan made sure. 

“Kind of.” Woojin shrugged. 

It wasn’t really anything of an answer, but it seemed enough for Jaehwan. He smiled, and pointed at his phone on the countertop. “I just texted Daniel, he’s hanging with Sungwoon, apparently.” 

“That’s one of Jisung’s friends from college.” Minhyun took over. “He introduced him to Daniel a few years ago and Daniel has the biggest crush on him but Sungwoon had to move because of work so Daniel never got to dramatically confess. Seems like he’s back in town now though.” 

“Oh, nice.” Woojin gave back as neutrally as he could. If they found out he knew exactly who Sungwoon was, and what Daniel was doing at his place, he would never hear the end of it. 

Jaehwan snorted. “That’s what you think now. Wait ‘till he starts bringing him home for the night.” 

Woojin didn’t reply to that. Daniel didn’t seem to mind it when Jihoon was over. He didn’t see why he’d have to mind Sungwoon.  
“Let’s talk about the important things.” Jaehwan suddenly spoke up, like Woojin hadn’t just outright ignored him. “How’s Leia?” 

“Good, I assume.” 

“You assume?” 

“She was fine when I left, I assume she’s still fine now.” 

“Poor thing” Jaehwan pouted. “Left all alone back there.” 

“It’s only for a few hours.” Woojin reasoned. “She’ll be fine.” 

“I bet she’s lonely.” Jaehwan whined again. Woojin wondered if he’d had a drink or two before they got here already. Usually Jaehwan didn’t get emotional up until his third glass. 

“The cats are with her.” He assured him, but Jaehwan pouted. 

Minhyun came to Woojin’s aid. “His shift ends in 15 minutes, I’m sure Leia will survive until then.” 

“If she even survived until now…” Jaehwan mumbled. 

“Can you stop talking my dog’s untimely death into existence, please?” Woojin tried to steal an inconspicuous look at the clock to confirm what Minhyun had said. He was right, Woojin could leave in a few minutes. 

His eyes met Jihoon’s as he went to turn back to his friends and he wasn’t surprised to find the other grinning back at him. 

He made sure Minhyun was tending to Jaehwan, still worried about Leia, and went to the other side of the bar. 

“You know” He said quietly. “I still don’t understand why you come here so early sometimes when you know exactly when my shift ends.” 

“Rude.” Jihoon replied, but he didn’t actually seem offended. “I’m a paying customer.” 

“You bought one drink.” 

The grin was back. Jihoon grinned a lot, and Woojin hated it because his grins, such an open expression on anybody else, were unreadable on Jihoon. “Okay, maybe I just like watching you work.” 

“Maybe you _are_ a creep after all.” 

“Oh, shut up.” Jihoon swiftly got to his feet and put down the money for his one drink on the counter. “You’re getting your tip later.” 

“That’s unorthodox.” 

“Be glad you’re getting tipped at all, your service is lousy.” 

“Oh, is it? I’ll ask you about that again in a few hours.” 

Jihoon chuckled lowly. “Your friends look like they miss you. I’ll wait outside.”

Woojin nodded even though Jihoon had already turned around to leave. He knew Woojin would come and look for him as soon as he got out of his shift, they’d done this countless times before. It was like a very well rehearsed dance for them, every step to a well-known rhythm. 

He wasn’t quite sure when it had started to become a routine, couldn’t recall the point where he’d had the steps memorised but it felt all too familiar when he set foot out into the October cold and tapped Jihoon’s arm to get his attention. He wondered what Jihoon had been thinking about when he’d been staring up at the clouded sky, but he didn’t ask. 

He wondered about a lot of things Jihoon did, but never asked. If Jihoon wanted him to know, he would tell him and he generally didn’t tell him a lot. Woojin hadn’t seen Jihoon for weeks, but he didn’t expect him to mention it, and he wouldn’t question it. It wasn’t like it bothered him. 

He had to think that Leia would probably demand an explanation if she could, with the way she started excitedly circling Jihoon’s legs as soon as they stepped into Woojin’s apartment. 

“Long time no see, monster.” Jihoon murmured fondly while bending down to let her nuzzle his hand. “Is Daniel not home?” He asked, louder. 

“He’s with a friend from college.” 

No matter how often they repeated the same choreography, the melody unchanging, the interludes of small-talk rarely became less awkward, at least according to Woojin. 

“Things are only awkward when you let them be.” Jihoon had shrugged one night a while ago. “Personally, I don’t do awkward.” 

It didn’t make the small-talk any less awkward, Woojin thought. It just made Woojin the only one suffering from it. 

“A friend from college, huh?” Jihoon repeated while standing back upright with a grin. Leia shuffled off into the kitchen and without the busy tapping of her paws the hallway sounded weirdly empty. 

“Yeah” Woojin nodded faintly, barely an explanation, he just wanted to say _something_ to avoid any tense silence. 

Instead of keeping the conversation alive like Woojin had hoped he would, Jihoon chuckled. “You’re never gonna get better at this whole thing, are you?” 

Awkwardness usually stemmed from one or more parties skirting around an obvious fact in a conversation, that everyone involved was aware of. Jihoon didn’t do awkwardness because he never skirted around anything, he just spoke his mind, and yet Woojin still couldn’t tell what was going on in his head. Jihoon was like a song played on an instrument Woojin had never learned - he could hear the melody but he didn’t understand how it was produced. 

Woojin knew Jihoon was right, he was terrible at any sort of conversation, and this kind of conversation was one of the weirdest ones to have. But, as a lot of things Jihoon said did, the statement had some sort of challenge in it that Woojin couldn’t ignore, so instead of agreeing and going on with his life, he made a tried to prove Jihoon wrong. 

“I haven’t seen you in a while.” He hadn’t planned to ask Jihoon about his absence, because he felt like it wasn’t his place to, but weirdly enough it was the first thing he came up with. 

“I have a life outside of this, you know?” Jihoon replied, his voice didn’t have the mocking tone to it that his words suggested. 

“Figures.” Woojin nodded, and went past Jihoon in the direction of his bedroom. The hallway was a terribly uncomfortable place to talk, it was cold, and wherever this conversation would end up, it would lead them to the bedroom anyways so he might as well speed the location aspect up. 

Jihoon followed him after a moment of consideration, as if he had been caught up on something. Woojin couldn’t have said on what, but he was sure if he was supposed to know, Jihoon would tell him. 

“Maybe I was with someone else.” 

Woojin turned around from where he had hung up his jacket over a chair, to Jihoon who was still standing by the closed bedroom door. A bit of the challenge that sometimes was in Jihoon’s words had stolen its way into his eyes, but Woojin didn’t understand what challenge he was supposed to take here. 

“Okay.” He simply replied, making it sound slightly like a question, in hope that maybe Jihoon would explain himself against all odds. 

“That doesn’t bother you?” 

Woojin shrugged. “It’s your life.” 

Jihoon held his eyes for a few more seconds, before huffing and pushing away from the door finally, taking the few steps over to Woojin. “You’re weird.” 

Woojin didn’t see how he was weird. Jihoon and him weren’t dating, it was one of the few things he was certain of when it came to Jihoon. “Because I realize and accept that we aren’t exclusive and you can do with your life what you want?” 

“Yeah.” The glint of challenge in Jihoon’s eyes had made way for a different one, a glimmering, teasing sort of glint. “Who does that?” 

Woojin thought that he hoped that most people did that, that no one had actually treated Jihoon like Jihoon had apparently expected Woojin to treat him. Another thing he was certain of when it came to Jihoon was, that he didn’t want things like toxic jealousy to happen to him. Only considering the reasons that Jihoon could have to ask if whatever he did with his life bothered Woojin sat uncomfortably in his stomach.

“A halfway decent human being.” He gave back. 

Whatever it had been that Jihoon had had in mind and that Woojin had worried about, it seemed to be gone now, as Jihoon closed the distance between them and wound his arms around Woojin’s neck. Woojin’s hands automatically settled around Jihoon’s waist as they fell back into their usual rhythm. 

“Sounds fake.” Jihoon mumbled. Woojin felt his little smile against his lips only a second later. 

*** 

Woojin didn’t know what time it was when he woke up, but the sun wasn’t up yet. The only source of light was a streetlight outside, and it was casting its soft glow on Jihoon’s face next to him. 

His thoughts, drowsy and slow as they were, circled back to the conversation they’d had before. He wondered, not for the first time, what the motivation for a lot of things Jihoon did was. He couldn’t help but feel like he wouldn’t like the answer. 

Jihoon oftentimes said things, vague comments, offhand jokes, that made Woojin stop and consider him, consider the fact that he didn’t know so many things about him. On more instances than one Woojin had found that alongside his thoughts about Jihoon’s motivations, there was a silent, smudged idea of something else, something that grew louder and more defined with every time he realised its presence. 

Worry, he had learned, came with attachment. He had been attached to the life he had before, to his family, to his home. He had been as attached as a 16-year-old could be to all that he’d grown up with, until he had been forced out of it. Attachment wasn’t something he had allowed back into his life until very recently. Now he was attached to Daniel, to some of Daniel’s friends begrudgingly, to Leia, to the whisper of his own life he had started to build back up around himself. It had scared him at first, still did now. 

It scared him that what he felt when he looked at Jihoon now, the quiet unsuspecting note that started playing whenever he got caught up in something Jihoon said, it matched the tune of attachment that had recently welled back up in his life perfectly. 

He had accepted being stuck with Daniel and his cats and his friends and this life. Daniel had told him time and time again that he wouldn’t get rid of him that easily, even if he wanted to. He wasn’t sure he could accept this. He didn’t think Jihoon would want to be stuck with him. On that front he could believe Daniel, because Daniel was as open a person as his actions suggested, he had let Woojin into his home and in the process had let him in his life, his heart, let Woojin know him and let him know he wanted to get to know Woojin in return. 

Jihoon was closed off, mysterious, changed subjects smoothly when they cut too deep. Worry meant cuts deeper than Woojin thought whatever they had could survive. What they had was fickle, shallow, even when Woojin sometimes tended to forget that over easy conversation and the sound of Jihoon’s quiet chuckles and the taste of his lips. 

He had meant it when he said what Jihoon did with other people in the life he lived outside of the moments they shared didn’t bother him. It didn’t and it never would, he knew his place in Jihoon’s life. 

Right at this moment he found himself faced with the prospect that this place was not going to change, and that was what bothered him. 

It wasn’t going to change because the small hint of a melody that was the feelings playing in Woojin’s chest as he looked at the shadows that the streetlight painted on Jihoon’s face, and the full out symphony of mystery and questions that Jihoon was were two fundamentally different things. 

They were better off not intersecting, playing for themselves only. 

*** 

When he woke up the next time, Jihoon was gone, Leia’s water bowl was filled up and a full thermos of coffee was on the kitchen counter. 

The only message he got all day was from Daniel telling him he’d be home by dinner. 

*** 

Three months later it was still cold, the January air bit the bare skin of Woojin’s face as he made his way to the bar. 

He faintly remembered melodies and symphonies and couldn’t help but regret that he hadn’t memorised either more closely. 

Jihoon didn’t come to the bar anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> comment with your theories for the ending, maybe? that sounds fun ^^ 
> 
> i said i had to resist the urge to write a happy ever after but i feel the need to tell you that the happy ending definitely exists in the confines of my mind haha 
> 
> here's my [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/lilaliacs) ♡♡


End file.
